Ripon Chamber of Commerce Director Mandy Kimes opens the door to a single-story building that's painted white.
"Welcome to the Little White Schoolhouse," Kimes says.
A modest sign stands over the doorway, reading birthplace of the Republican Party. Inside, about 820 square feet, holding a black chalkboard, a teacher's desk and benches for students. There's even an era-appropriate wood-burning stove with a small metal door Kimes opens and closes.
Kimes says a schoolhouse stove would have been heating the building on March 20, 1854, when about 50 men met to discuss how to oppose the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. That measure allowed the possibility of wider expansion of slavery beyond the balancing effort of the Missouri Compromise. Kimes says attendees for the meeting in Ripon were from a mix of political parties active at the time.
"They didn't agree on everything. There were Whigs, which was a party that was really struggling at the time and not getting much momentum there. There were Democrats. There were Free Soilers," Kimes explains.
Yet Kimes says people at the meeting felt the existing political parties still did not go far enough in denouncing slavery.
"And after lots of debate, and especially a lot of leadership by Alvan Bovay, the very first Republican committee was formed, the very first Republican local meeting was formed, and that name was really adopted," she says.
Bovay, born in upstate New York, was a teacher and lawyer who had moved to Ripon a few years before the 1854 meeting. Now that the building that witnessed the origin story of the GOP is preserved as a museum, local officials hope RNC delegates will find their way here. Lenny Burnett of Goodletsville, Tenn., says he came by as part of a trip to see friends in Wisconsin. Burnett says he's not very political but was intrigued to learn about the anti-slavery effort.
"Places like this, for sure, are great to help educate for those who are willing to learn," Burnett says.